Healey again shakes up Department of Public Utilities leadership

For the second time in about two and a half years, the Healey administration revamped the lineup of Department of Public Utilities regulators including the removal of the chairman hired in 2023 to build "a 21st century DPU."

When the various moving parts come to a stop this fall, DPU Chairman James Van Nostrand will be replaced by Jeremy McDiarmid, a current leader of the national business association Advanced Energy United who has previous experience working at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Northeast Clean Energy Council and Environment Northeast. And Cecile Fraser, an energy and utilities industry attorney first appointed to the DPU in 2017 by Gov. Charlie Baker's administration, will be replaced as a commissioner by Liz Anderson, the current chief of the Energy and Ratepayer Advocacy Division in Attorney General Andrea Campbell's office.

"As the federal government tries to take energy sources off the table and hikes up customer bills, Massachusetts needs to focus on two things: more supply and lower costs," Healey said in a statement. "We are appointing two leaders with deep expertise in affordability and getting energy infrastructure built to continue to advance these priorities for our residents and businesses."

Staci Rubin, a longtime environmental justice advocate who worked as vice president of environmental justice at the Conservation Law Foundation before she was appointed to the DPU by the Healey administration in March 2023, is staying in place.

The DPU sits right in the middle of a number of issues that the Healey administration hopes to address: it oversees investor-owned electricity, natural gas and water utilities in Massachusetts, is charged with oversight of the safety of natural gas pipelines through the state, and regulates the safety of bus companies, moving companies, transportation network companies, and the MBTA.